Here's to You
by Zayz
Summary: An engaged college student is House’s new patient after a respiratory arrest no one can explain. Meanwhile, a looming Valentine’s Day haunts PPTH. Mid-season 4. T for language. An “episode” – full summary inside. R&R?
1. Prologue

**A/N**: This story is, first and foremost, a birthday present for my friend Liz (**XxIcexX**).

It's going to be an episode featuring a **medical mystery** and all that, so this first little bit is meant to be like the first minute or so of the show, where you **meet the patient**.

I plan a total of eight chapters, including this one. **I did my research** as well as I could to make my work accurate, so I'd love it if you could **give me a chance here** and **leave reviews** when you're done, because that's how I can pick up on little mistakes I can fix later. I would appreciate feedback.

It takes place **mid-season 4**, so the amount of romance in here, despite V-Day, is minimal – just some **House/Cuddy flirting** at most. **Cameron **makes an appearance, and those of you as tired of Thirteen as I am, breathe easy knowing that **I kept her mostly to the sidelines**. I wanted to let Cuddy, Wilson, Kutner, and Taub shine too – as well as House, of course.

**Updates will be swift** as this story is already pretty much **finished** on my computer, so that's it for my eternally-long author's note and I hope you guys like this. **Enjoy**.

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**I. Prologue**

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"Good God, this is brutal, isn't it?" Elizabeth grinned, her smile trying its best to retain some sort of lightness. "Far too much to remember. I am destined to fail tomorrow."

Luke looked exceptionally tired under the limited light of the tiny, dim lamp perched on the table beside them. Shadows danced around the messy dorm room, the paper scattered around the floor, the stubble Luke hadn't had the time to properly shave. His smile did not make as much effort to be light.

"I know. But hey, at least you'll have me to fail with you." His words were punctuated by a rich yawn. "We can be cooking school drop-outs together."

"Wow, you little ray of sunshine, you." Elizabeth smirked, blowing a stray lock of dirty-blonde hair out of her face. "You fill me up with incalculable optimism."

"What?" Luke pouted. "You were the one telling me you were destined to fail tomorrow!"

"Yeah, so you're supposed to comfort me, console me, maybe give me a kiss, and then tell me I'll pass with flying colors," she informed him. "You have to be there for me, and so far, you're doing a suckish job."

Luke felt a smile tugging at his lips. He paused, and then asked, "…Is it too late to give you that kiss?"

Elizabeth giggled, blushing. "I suppose not."

"Sweet." Luke leaned in and pressed his lips against Elizabeth's, a certain relief in being able to do something that did not cause him as much grief as studying did. He could feel her smiling into his mouth before she pulled away.

"You're an idiot. Get back to work." Elizabeth gave him a playful smack on his face.

"Lizzie…" he complained.

"Don't you 'Lizzie' me – I might have to use something cuter against you." Elizabeth rolled her eyes at the unfortunate young man and then coughed, the sound harsh in the midst of their otherwise-noiseless room in the middle of the night.

"That cough still getting to you?" Luke asked sympathetically.

"Yeah." She coughed a few more times, labored and scratchy, before reaching for the bottle of lozenges discarded on her right.

"Stupid colds," she added as she popped a few into her mouth and swallowed. "I hate being sick."

"Well, since it's winter and all, it's kind of, like, destined to happen." Luke shrugged, yawning again. "You'll get over it…although, I am surprised. You've been sick a while now."

"I know." Elizabeth coughed once more.

"You sure you don't want to go to the doctor?" he wanted to know.

"No, no, it's fine." Elizabeth coughed a few more times, harsh and throaty, her expression disgruntled at both his proposal and her own diminished health. "It's only a cold. Besides, our test is tomorrow –which is a little more important to me right now."

"I guess," Luke allowed, unwillingly changing the subject. "Can you believe they're giving it to us right around Valentine's Day?"

Elizabeth threw him a dry look. "_I _can't believe you can't believe that," she said, rubbing her nose and sniffing. "Do you think any administrator cares it's almost Valentine's Day?"

"They should," Luke decided. "I wanted to take you out."

"Well, that's very nice of you, but we've got other crap to do. Like this." Elizabeth coughed once more and shoved her book in his face. "Now stop distracting me!"

Luke raised his hands in defense. "Hey, hey, you let me distract you – you're at fault here too," he said.

"Whatever." Elizabeth buried her face in the crook of her arm to hold down another brief coughing fit. She sounded choked, grated – like a fork in a garbage disposal. The expression on Luke's face was one of deep-seated concern as he surveyed the young woman's condition.

"Liz, you sure you don't want me to call someone?" he asked. "I mean, you're coughing your guts out. I don't like it, it doesn't sound right."

Elizabeth raised her hand to silence him, continuing to cough violently into her sleeve, and Luke observed with growing unease.

"No," she tried to say between coughs. "No, no, I'm fine…I'm really…"

Now her coughing took a turn for the worse and he could tell, instinctively, that something was quite wrong. Elizabeth was getting worse. Finally, she emerged from her sleeve, her pretty face significantly panicked, her green eyes practically bugging out of her face.

"Luke…Luke…" she gasped. Her coughing stopped and extreme anxiety colored her voice. "I…I can't…"

Frantic, Luke attempted to recall that health course he took, way back in high school, as he looked on to his frightened, ailing companion. Elizabeth was beginning to shake fiercely, her lips turning blue and the warmth in her complexion rushing out of her like water through a hose.

She was in trouble. Big trouble. Due to extreme shock, Luke's brain was completely frozen up, and he could think of nothing to help her, save her life, so he did the next best thing:

He fumbled for the cell-phone in his pocket, punched in three numbers, and hollered desperately into the phone, "Help! Help! My girlfriend's dying!"

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**A/N**: Review button's right down there…


	2. Our Latest Bundle of Fun

**A/N**: Thanks for reviewing, guys, I really appreciate it – keep those up!

**Disclaimer**: I am a fifteen-year-old sophomore, not a brilliant medical college student who knows all the ins and outs of health care. Please forgive any faulty medicine found in this story – I tried to make it as accurate as possible, but I'm not perfect. Just in case you forget.

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**II. Our Latest Bundle of Fun**

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The sun shined, vivid and golden, over the general scene of New Jersey in winter. Patches of snow erratically covered the ground, tiny tufts of dead-looking grass rearing their battered heads through the sludgy mess. February was a muddled time on the East Coast.

Gregory House parked his car in the drive and limped inside, bundled up in his battered gray coat against the nippy wind whipping past him in bursts. He entered Princeton-Plainsboro Hospital through the main front entrance and as he did so, a highly unusual amount of pink came within his view like an enormous slap in the face. He had to blink a few times just to take it all in.

"What's all this?" he grunted at a small, blonde secretary sitting at the desk as he scrawled his name on the check-in list.

"Oh, the pink hearts?" The blonde beamed with pride. "Well, it's Valentine's Day in a couple of days and we thought it would be nice to make the front room a little festive. It's nice, isn't it?"

"Yeah – about as nice as the root canal I had last week." House rolled his eyes, glaring at the bright hearts around him as though each had done him a personal wrong.

The blonde gave him a disapproving look, but said nothing more as she settled back down in her seat to type something into the computer. House continued on his way up to his office, when through his peripheral vision he happened to notice Wilson entering and signing in himself. He turned back around and went to join his best friend, who, like him, was gazing around at the overdose of pink in the lobby.

"Nice decorations," Wilson remarked to the very same blonde. "Who put them up?"

"Us," the blonde clarified proudly, gesturing to the two men sitting on either side of her. "This morning."

"I like them." Wilson's smile was very friendly as he signed underneath House's name and looked back up to see the man himself standing in front of him, sour as ever.

"Oh, good morning," he said. "You look particularly dashing today. This pink lobby really brings out the youthful blush in your cheeks."

"Thanks," House said as both of them made their way together to the elevators. "You look nice too. Your hair is fluffier than a new puppy – it's, like, boy-band sexy!" He pulled a spontaneous pop-star pose to accompany his squawky imitation. "Rock on, dude!" He put out his hand for a pound.

Wilson smirked as he readily ignored House's fist. "Totally, home-skillet."

House made a face as he withdrew his hand and used his cane to punch the call-button for the elevator, as well as smack Wilson's hand for attempting to do it first.

"Hey, stop stealing my hip, zingy one-liners, copy-cat – get your own," he scolded as the doors opened and the two stepped forward towards the tiny cubicle.

Unfortunately (for House, anyway), it already held one occupant.

"Oh, it's you." Lisa Cuddy rolled her eyes at the sight of the hospital's cranky diagnostician.

House took a double-take and blinked a few times, mock-startled. "Cuddy? Is that really you behind those enormous mounds of flesh mounted upon your chest?" He sighed with fake relief, the sarcasm etched into the lines of his aging face. "Sorry about that, I couldn't see you back there. Too much skin in the way."

Cuddy pursed her lips with irritation, scooting over a couple of steps to make room for snickering Wilson and House in the elevator.

"Nice to see you too, House." She grimaced at him. She then turned her attention to Wilson, her features brightening considerably. "Good morning, Dr. Wilson," she said with a smile.

"Good morning, Cuddy." Wilson could not be more amused if he tried.

The woman nodded and her pleasant demeanor melted the moment she turned her attention back to House. "You've got a case," she informed him, rearranging the stack of papers and files in her hand so that a dark blue folder was on top. "Twenty-four year old female, culinary student, went into respiratory arrest late last night."

"Well, unless she plans to make me a free banquet tonight, I'm not interested," House announced. "Respiratory arrest adds some awesome social tension, but unfortunately, brings down the diagnostic tension. Kind of like you, now that I think on it."

Cuddy wasn't giving up so easily. "Her fiancé said she had had a cold for about a week or so and the ER didn't find any of the usual stuff, but her condition is still not going well. She's stable for now, but we can't be sure."

"It's probably undiagnosed pneumonia or something," House said, dismissive as ever, as the elevator stopped at his floor and he left Wilson behind, Cuddy keeping his pace as he limped down the corridor.

"Nope – ER tested for that already," Cuddy persisted.

"It's got to be some sort of stupid infection," House said. "It's a waste of time. Tell the ER to check for more of the usual crap and enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you help humanity. I think Valentine's season is a time for fuzziness – or maybe that was Halloween, I always get the two mixed up."

Cuddy took an extra couple of steps forward and blocked House off, standing in front of him with one hand on her hip and the other shoving a file into his chest.

"House, take the case," she ordered. "They tried, they tested, and they couldn't figure it out in the ER and they don't want her getting worse. I need you to figure it out."

House wrinkled his nose with distaste as his fingers closed around the file. He waved it for himself like a fan, and then waved it for Cuddy, surprising her.

"Shoo fly, don't bother me with these boring cases," he said, shoving the file right back at her.

"What else would you do, play with your ball or watch your soap operas or do something equally useless?" Cuddy arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah," House said, exhaling and roughly brushing by Cuddy to retire to the safe haven of his office. "I hate being useful. Too much work involved."

Again, Cuddy followed him and cut him off. House frowned at her, surveying her with annoyance. However, seeing a small group of people strolling by together, he took the liberty of saying in an overly-loud, exaggerated tone, "God, woman, _no_, I've already told you I will not have sex with you!"

Mission accomplished – the group of people glanced quizzically in their direction.

"I've said this a million times – now a million and one," House said with a vast sigh and an understanding pat on her shoulder. "Office relationships don't work out – ever. It's not the _responsible_ thing for us to do. You will have to learn to keep yourself under control around me so we can maintain a healthy work environment."

He checked to make sure he had been heard; and indeed he had been. The spectators passed along, shaking their heads and looking at each other with sheer bewilderment, and House looked back to Cuddy, who was giving him one of her cold-and-formidable glares, her eyes narrowing.

"Take the case and I promise a healthy work environment will be maintained." Her expression did not change in its iciness as she shoved the file a final time into his hand. She turned on her heel and walked back down the hallway to attend to business elsewhere.

"You've got the ass of an overweight hippopotamus," House yelled back after her on sudden inspiration.

Cuddy, needless to say, did not feel the need to respond; which obviously meant House had successfully given her day a terrible start and won their face-off.

Smirking to himself in victory, House opened the file with mild curiosity, scanning through it as he pushed the door open into his office, where his team sat assembled already, lounging about and chatting amongst themselves until their boss made his appearance.

"New case," House stated with the utmost flippancy, tossing the file neatly in the middle of the table and making his way to the counter in the corner. "Take a look."

Thirteen was the first to grab the blue folder, taking a peek through it. "Elizabeth Dyal, twenty-four-year-old female, college student, came in with cold and respiratory arrest," she read.

Kutner took the file from her with interest while House ignored them all in favor of making himself coffee. "Says here she goes to that college nearby, the culinary one," he volunteered. "She wants to be a chef."

"Does it matter?" House stared at the ceiling for a moment, pondering this, before he enlightened the team with a: "No, it isn't. Tell me something I care about."

"There's really nothing to say." Now Taub had the file as well as the floor, while Foreman glanced at it over his shoulder. "She's stable now and her lungs seem to be working all right. But her boyfriend –"

"—Fiancé," House corrected. "Get it right, Taub, _God_. The girl's in _love_; don't cheapen it when Valentine's Day is so close by."

Taub smirked and went on, "The _fiancé _has said she wasn't feeling well before she came in. Said she had aches, coughed a lot, was more tired than usual, had a fever yesterday, and took Advil."

"Valentine's Day foreplay could explain the aches and exhaustion," said House.

"Well, it's a fever, so this is definitely an infection," Foreman decided, ignoring this. "I'd say it's in her lungs."

"It could be bronchiolitis or SARS," agreed Thirteen.

"ER already tested that!" House sang, leaning over to scribble symptoms on his white-board with blue marker. "Idiots…originality is a good thing, make friends with it."

"West Nile," Foreman proposed.

House snorted, derision all over his face. "Hey, hey, not _that _original. Our fine American government would go nuts if we tried to say something like _West Nile _was found in the middle of _New Jersey_," he said disapprovingly. "International viruses don't belong here. Wait until we get a better symptom before we start getting exotic."

He glanced crossly around the room at the four of them. "Come on, people, Cuddy reminds me everyday how over-qualified you are and all I get are your idiotic theories. Give me something else, something _good_."

"She's a twenty-four-year-old college student," Taub noted. "She's young. She could have an STD. There's a note here that she was supposed to have a big exam today – stress can make a person do some pretty strange things."

"She's getting married and went home for Christmas break and all that – she could have some pet-carrying infection, maybe from a dog," Kutner suggested. "Could be RMSF."

"That was two months ago, it would've shown symptoms already," Thirteen argued. "I think it's a lung infection."

"It could've kicked in late, or felt like something else, so she didn't pay attention," Kutner defended himself.

"I agree with Thirteen, it's probably in her lungs," Foreman declared.

House snorted again into his newly-made mug of coffee. "You _would_ think that," he said scornfully. "Go agree with the only girl in the room, why don't you – if it worked for Chase, it could work for you too. We all know you _want some_, and who better than a chick who won't discriminate who gets what?"

Thirteen blushed, triggering Taub and Kutner to exchange smirks across the room. Foreman's expression grew quite cold, reminding him forcefully of Cuddy all of a sudden. "It's a sound diagnosis," he defended himself. "Seeing as she's got faulty _lungs_, as well as a _fever_, it would make sense that she's got an _infection _eating up the aforementioned _lungs_."

"Kutner had a decent idea all his own that could work," House pointed out.

"I did?" Kutner brightened.

"No, but it works for my argument." House's eyes remained on Foreman.

"Oh…"

Kutner went back to the file, making Taub chuckle quietly to himself, and Foreman could only shake his head, irate, at his opinionated boss.

"Fine, so what are we going to do?" he asked.

House took a sip of coffee and pulled on his thinking face. "Um…take a panel of STD tests so that Taub will shut up the next time we deliberate, test some of the easy infections, and give the dead-lung girl broad-spectrum antibiotics to see if she's as boring as I think she is," he ordered. "Go to it, cadets! Guard the home-front, protect democracy. And I want those germy safe-havens out of Afghanistan before the day is out."

He waved his team impatiently towards the door and the four of them rose, leaving the room to test the patient. House remained behind, watching them go, and settled down with his feet up on the chair next to him, staring at the board and cursing Cuddy's bad taste in medical mysteries (as well as her cleavage) to oblivion.

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**A/N**: Review, por favor.


	3. Making Things Interesting

**A/N**: Hope you all are enjoying this so far, because I'm having more fun than I thought I would – please keep reading and reviewing!

This chapter mainly focuses on side-story – it's quite short, but a little more with the patient and the team. I hope you like it!

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**III. Making Things Interesting**

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"Good morning, Elizabeth."

Taub smiled as she entered the girl's hospital room, holding a needle in his hands. "How are you feeling?" he asked, sitting down on a rolling chair by the bed.

Elizabeth, who had been sleeping, yawned and her eyes began flickering open, taking in the sight of the man by her bed. She smiled back.

"I'm feeling all right, actually," she said with a cough. "I haven't been able to catch up on my sleep in a while, because of school and all."

"I know what you mean." Taub smirked. "Medical school was the same way."

Elizabeth coughed again. "I can imagine. So what do you need now?"

"Blood and a few swabs," said Taub. "We're testing for STD's."

"You think I have an STD?" Elizabeth's green eyes widened. "But…but that can't be right. Luke was my first and he got tested before we…"

"Don't worry, it's just a precaution." Taub injected Elizabeth's arm and instantly, the tiny vial began to fill with blood. "We have a few other theories too."

"Okay…" Elizabeth lay back and sighed, releasing a few more light coughs. "Man. I never knew I'd have to stay overnight at a hospital because of a _cold_."

"It's an infection, but it's not a cold," Taub said. "These tests will help us determine which one it is."

"How long am I going to be here?" Elizabeth wanted to know.

"Just a few days," he answered. "We'll have you out as soon as we can. Now, I'm very sorry about this, but I'm going to need a pap smear…"

Elizabeth groaned. "Isn't it enough if I swear that my only partner was thoroughly tested?"

Taub's smile was wry. "While that would be nice, I'm under orders. Sorry."

"Cheers." Elizabeth spread her legs apart as Taub picked up the appropriate tools for this job. Just as he was about to take the smear, Elizabeth's fiancé, Luke, walked in holding two soda cans and two bags of chips from the vending machine. He nearly dropped all four items when he saw the scene before him.

"W-What the fuck is going on here?" he demanded, gesturing to a startled Taub with wide blue eyes.

"Luke, it's fine, he's just taking a test," Elizabeth explained, blushing.

"I understand that, Liz, but what does _that test _tell you about her fucking _lungs_?" Luke went to sit in the chair by the window, setting the snacks down on the table, dumb-founded.

"Well, we don't believe it's a cold, so we're clearing all avenues," explained Taub, keeping his tone as flat as he could under the circumstances. "Some STD's cause the symptoms she is experiencing and we just want to be sure we don't miss anything."

"Liz doesn't have an STD," Luke proclaimed fiercely. "I got tested."

"She told me." Taub's eyes narrowed. "But I'm taking the test again anyway. You don't have to watch."

Luke's eyes narrowed in return, glaring petulantly, but he said nothing more and the doctor took another two minutes to finish up the exam. Collecting his materials, Taub nodded at Luke and Elizabeth before disappearing out into the hallway, making his way to the lab where the others would be waiting.

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As he was surveying a few of the swabs in the lab with his fellow diagnosticians, Kutner decided to break the mutual quiet and speak.

"Hey, so Valentine's Day is coming up," he said.

"So…what?" Thirteen – mildly disinterested as ever – responded vaguely.

"So, I think we should do something for it," Kutner suggested, a goofy sort of smile taking form on his face. "You know, bring in candy or chocolate or something and hand it out. It's supposed to be a day for good will, right?"

"I can see you already forgot our disastrous Secret Santa incident," Foreman piped up from his corner. "Do you really think House will take kindly to sugar-coated, heart-shaped candies passing between people in his presence? Not gonna happen."

"We could…not tell him until we actually hand out the candy, at which point he could do little to sabotage it," Kutner tried again. "I mean, he's human, isn't he? He wouldn't be able to resist some harmless candy once it's in his face."

"You're forgetting that House is an ass," Taub stated, joining the conversation.

"Asses like sugar too," Kutner insisted.

"Yeah, but asses like annoying non-asses more," Foreman said. "It's a bad idea. You don't want to try anything nice with House. If you value your sanity, don't bring in candy."

Kutner glanced around at the faces of the team scattered around the room. "I think we should," he repeated stubbornly. "I mean, it would be fun. We could wear pink, munch on something sweet, enjoy the day. We don't need House to have fun."

"Valentine's Day is pointless in itself," Thirteen said with a shrug. "It's just another day – one in three hundred and sixty five. I don't understand why we have to worship hearts and flowers and the _power of love_."

"It's not such a bad idea to have another day dedicated to being nice," Kutner objected.

"People should be good to other people everyday, not just on Valentine's Day." Thirteen peeped into her microscope. "And by the way, I don't see any of the usual suspects."

"I like Valentine's Day…" Kutner unwillingly looked back into his own microscope. "And yeah, you're right, her blood is fine so far."

"The whole Valentine's Day idea is pretty stupid, if you ask me, but at the same time, you could be doing worse things on your February fourteenth," Taub justified fairly. "My wife loves it. We go out every year – including this one."

"I've never liked Valentine's Day," Thirteen stated.

"Why, couldn't get a date?" Foreman grinned.

She rolled her eyes. "No – my partners just knew better than to ask me. I didn't care for it. The whole thing is hypocritical anyway. You talk about loving, and caring, and sharing, and you act like you're so happy and jolly, but you go back to doing whatever you did the very next day. It's a holiday created to make people feel better and I don't agree."

"There's nothing wrong with feeling better," Taub remarked.

"I'm still bringing in candy," Kutner announced. "I'll deal with House. Just play along, all right? I want to see how this goes."

"I can already tell you how this goes." Foreman cleared his throat. "Look, I've worked for House a long time and I know he's going to shoot you down, ruin your mood, and then ruin the rest of your week. The good idea is there, and I acknowledge that, but the aftermath isn't worth it."

"That's for me to decide." Kutner stopped working altogether to focus his attention on Foreman. "So you want to put some money on this, to make it even more worth it?"

"As much as I hate taking money from the unfortunate people who still have faith in our egotistical boss, I think I'll take you up on that offer." Foreman dug in his pocket for his wallet, flipping through it to see how much he had on him. "I bet…twenty bucks that House is going to go bulldog on you when he sees your Valentine's Day surprise."

"Fine by me – I bet the same, twenty bucks," Kutner asserted airily. "Are we agreed?"

"Yup." Foreman walked over and both men shook hands on the bet. "We have Taub and Thirteen as witnesses."

"Or maybe just Thirteen." Taub stepped forward and surveyed the two. "I want in – I think Foreman is right, because ass-kissing never works on House, and I don't mind the extra money. Thirty bucks."

Foreman arched an eyebrow. "All right." He glanced back at Thirteen. "You sure you don't want to join in? Maybe on Kutner's side, to even out the playing field?"

Thirteen grimaced. "I'm good. But thanks for asking."

"Okay." Kutner clapped his hands together and grinned his usual toothy grin, excitement visible all over his face. "Sounds like quite a healthy bet."

"But not for you." Foreman smirked. "Now come on – let's get back to work. I know I'm not the only one who wants to get out of here."

And the team – including Kutner – shrugged and did go back to their tests in polite but obvious silence.

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**A/N**: Reviews are much loved…


	4. Caution: People Thinking

**A/N**: This chapter mainly advances the medical mystery forward a little bit – and I get the opportunity to write my very first clinic scene! Yay!!

Hope you like it; and, as ever, please keep reviewing.

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**IV. Caution: People Thinking**

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The next morning dawned as brightly as the previous one had, sunshine melting the last of the slushy snow clinging to the New Jersey ground. However, in the midst of the business of hospital life, Elizabeth Dyal was not getting any better – a fact her five doctors were not at all pleased about.

By the time House limped his way into his office in the late morning, the other doctors were already sitting and talking intensely at the table, sheets of paper being passed around like hot potatoes. Foreman was perched at the white-board, adding notes to the symptoms House had written yesterday.

This was not a pleasant sight to come in to.

"Oy! Black guy!" House called, quickening his pace as he took in the scene through the glass doors and burst inside. "Step away from my board and no one gets hurt." He held his cane up like a gun for effect.

Foreman, unlike the three confused doctors staring at House, remained unfazed.

"You decided to come in late and Elizabeth's symptoms are getting worse," he explained evenly, tossing House the marker and taking a seat on the counter. "I decided to start the differential so we could get going on –"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, Foreman gets a gold star for looking after the patient," House interrupted, erasing what had been written and rewriting it in his own scrawl. "Very noble. Hasn't she let you call her Lizzie yet for all your troubles?"

"It doesn't matter what we call her," Thirteen said, her murky blue-green eyes flashing. "She's getting worse. Her temperature is climbing and her cough is as bad as ever. The broad-spectrum antibiotics aren't working."

"Hmm…" House stared musingly at his board. "Maybe our budding chef is more interesting than we thought."

"We?" Taub raised an eyebrow. "_We _want to treat her no matter what. _You _are the one who cares about interesting."

"But _we _are a department that works together and _shares _emotion." House sported a mock-martyr expression and looked at his doctors. "Valentine's Day is tomorrow after all, isn't it?"

"Can you stop being an ass for a few minutes so we can discuss what's wrong with this girl?" Foreman requested irritably.

"Okay, Foreman, we're not laughing anymore – take off your itchy pantyhose and quit raining on this parade." House rolled his eyes at him and looked beadily around at the rest of them. "So, while we're on the subject, what are your theories? What's going on?"

"I still think it's an STD," said Taub.

"Well, unluckily for all of us, the tests aren't due back until tomorrow, so I don't have the physical proof of you being an idiot," House stated. "However, we can take solace in the fact that I can call you an idiot anyway and assure you _it's not an STD_. What else is going on?"

"Nothing," Kutner said flatly, resting his chin in the palm of his hand. "We don't know what's wrong with her. That guy – her fiancé – has been harassing us every time we go near her room. He's going insane. Keeps saying this is all his fault because he didn't drag her to the doctors earlier."

"Eh, he should get over it," House dismissed, hanging his cane up on the corner of the board and reaching for the box of animal crackers. "Guilt – especially annoying guilt that gets in people's way – solves nothing." He bit off the head of an elephant. "So, I reiterate, what else is going on? What theories do you have?"

His inquiry was met with silence. The four avoided his gaze, rustling through Elizabeth's papers or through a medical textbook, but otherwise offering no explanation to the chain of events occurring inside their latest patient.

House was not enjoying this display of mute stupidity. Finishing off his elephant, he glared at the team with a stare that would redefine the intensity of the phrase 'if looks could kill…'

"Nothing? Fine. I see how it is." He pulled a chair towards himself and sank into it. "Test everything. Her blood, her urine, the works. Whatever you can think of to narrow this down. Take a damn lung biopsy if you have to."

"Wait, but didn't the ER –" Kutner began.

"Re-test everything," House cut him off, eyes flashing. "The people in the ER are idiots. They could've easily screwed something over to attend to some other moron recovering from a car accident."

"Cameron works in the ER," Foreman noted.

"Yes, and she's an idiot, I thought we already established this," snapped House. "Now go. Test."

Kutner opened his mouth to argue again, but Foreman beat him to it, smirking and saying, "Yes, House, we know that Valentine's Day is painful for you to handle because of all the happy, smiling people not succumbing to your misery. But don't take your loneliness out on us. It's not our problem."

House's eyes flashed murder. His tone low, he ordered, "Go run those tests. Valentine's Day or not, she'll die if you don't."

"I'll go test her blood," Kutner volunteered at once, hastily scrambling up and leaving the room as fast as possible.

With a heavy sigh, Foreman said, "Fine. I'll do urine."

"Thirteen and I can do a stress test to see what's going on with her lungs," said Taub, getting up and leaving with Thirteen following close behind.

House exhaled, slow and touchy, as he watched them go through the glass walls of the office. He remained motionless for a few seconds, but discovered by consulting his watch that it was almost eleven, and one of his favorite soap operas was going to be on.

Grabbing his cane, he crossed the room to reach his own office, where he had his TV. He settled into his rolling chair, resting his legs on a stool, and turned on the right channel, where a commercial for dentures was playing.

Sighing deeply to himself, he grabbed the gray-and-red ball sitting on his desk, and immersed himself in the art he had perfected over the years – the art of being alone and doing absolutely nothing of consequence while calling it "work."

--

After a couple of hours of mindless TV to amuse himself, House's mind had turned from soap operas to lunch. Wilson had his lunch hour now too, so the pair of them usually met up in the hospital's cafeteria for an hour of eating and catching up on the latest gossip. Once the credits began to roll on "Prescription Passion," he gingerly limped his way out of his office and went for the elevators, pressing the button and waiting impatiently as ever for one to arrive.

When it did, he stepped inside – but not before a hand held the door when it was just about to close.

It was Lisa Cuddy.

The moment he got a look at her face, her body joining his in the minuscule compartment, he made his way right back out of the elevator without a word or a look back. Exasperated, Cuddy called his name and followed him out when he refused to acknowledge her.

"House!" She caught up to him easily, clacking along with in her black heels. "I was just coming down to the cafeteria to find you."

"Oh, no, I'm sorry, no time for lunch," he said. "I was going to back to my office to get some more work done. Patient and all that. It's tragic – she's _dying_."

Cuddy snorted. "You probably don't even know her first name and the fact that she's dying doesn't bother you because you'd solve the puzzle at the autopsy if you had to," she said. "And don't lie to me; you weren't going to do any work. I saw you watching TV all morning while your team ran your tests."

"You know, I would be within my rights to get a restraining order on you for harassment," House remarked. "I'm sure Wilson knows a good lawyer."

The two of them stopped in the hallway together, going off to the side so as not to disturb the regular traffic. Cuddy's hands were on her hips, her lips pursed in that way that meant business, and House had no choice but to at least hear her out.

"What do you want?" he asked, gruff and severely disinterested.

"I need you to take a couple of clinic hours right now," she said. To his immediate groan, she quickly deflected by saying, "It's only a couple of hours, House, and I know you will be just fine if you take your lunch break a little later. I wouldn't ask you, normally, but people are busy and you're the only one who's not doing squat."

"It's all part of the process – and besides, how could you deny a cripple his lunch break?" House bleated. "How do you live with yourself?"

"I get on." Cuddy sighed. "I really wish you wouldn't make this difficult for me. Just do your job – which is listening to me – and this can be painless. For both of us."

"No," House decided. "I want to eat."

"Then the moment you're done with this case, you're spending an entire day in the clinic," said Cuddy.

"Don't act like a puffed-up hospital bureaucrat on me just because you don't have a date for Valentine's Day tomorrow," House quipped, recalling Foreman's argument.

Cuddy's expression hardened, as did her tone of voice when she responded to this as evenly as she could muster. "Don't push it, House. Come on. We're going to the clinic."

"Can we please get cookies on the way, Mommy?" House put on his best whiny-child voice – which, honestly, wasn't too far from his regular complaining voice. "I'm going to be so very hungry, since lunch is being _delayed_."

Choosing to carefully disregard this, Cuddy led House to the elevator and the two of them went downstairs to the clinic, where he was immediately handed a blue folder by the woman at the desk and told to go to Exam Room 3.

Cuddy sighed. "Thanks for doing this," she said.

"Well, I guess it's just a good thing _you're _not in there with the poor inhabitants of the clinic," said House. "Seeing the amount of cleavage you display everyday would give them all strokes and we all know what a stingy Dean of Medicine you are – they'd all die before you'd be willing to spend the money for treatment."

Restraining herself with great difficulty, reminding herself that she took his bullshit for the good of the hospital, Cuddy stomped off without a snappy retort. House, his mood slightly improved, limped into Exam Room 3 now, glancing with little concern through the file he had been handed.

"Hi, sixteen-year-old female," he said when he got in, seizing a stool and perching himself upon it. "I'm Dr. House. What's wrong with you?"

The teenage girl sitting before him was small with long brown hair on her head and a stick of chewing gum in her mouth. She blew a bubble and promptly popped it, her hazel eyes running House up and down, figuring what to make of him. She took a moment before she responded.

"Well, I've been constipated and nauseous for about a week now, and just not feeling very good, and when I came here, they said I had an irregular heart-beat," said the girl. "And my name is Ashleigh. I thought it said that in the file."

"It probably did." House tossed the folder onto the counter and stood up, examining the girl. "I don't know, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, you're just another preppy, Abercrombie-wearing little girl who's hopped up on sugar and drugs and thinks the world belongs to her."

"I'm wearing American Eagle, and I don't take drugs, and I think it's stupid to stereotype people without really getting to know them," Ashleigh said as House produced a stethoscope from inside a drawer, putting it to her chest and listening.

"Well, _I _think it's stupid when people stand up on their soap-box and then go do exactly what they preached against." House put his fingers to her neck, taking her pulse. "That's called hypocrisy – and hypocrisy is one of the most annoying things a person can do."

"I'm not a hypocrite," Ashleigh objected. "And I hate stereotypes. You can't just fit someone in a little box and expect them to stay in it."

"You _are _a hypocrite," House said steadily, "because everyone makes judgments. When I walked in, we both made assumptions about the other. We all do it, it's human nature – the only difference is who owns up to it and who doesn't. Guess which category you're in."

"No way, I don't make judgments," she insisted. "It's stupid to try. You don't know anything solid about the other person – like, you think I'm the stereotypical teenager, but I'm not. I don't try to do what society says I should. I hate being like everyone else. You wouldn't know that unless you took the time to talk to me for five minutes."

"Really." House gave her one of his irksome, knowing grins. "Well, right now, you're wearing a magenta shirt. That means that you're trying to get people's attention, because no one wears magenta in the middle of winter unless they want someone to look at them."

He gestured at her face. "Your shirt is also low-cut and those jeans could fit a mannequin made of sticks – I'd say they're a size one or two. That means you don't want just any person to look at you – you want a guy to look at you."

He gestured at her feet. "You're also wearing those repulsive Uggs, which is the must-have in the teen market right now. All the cool plastic-faced rich girls are wearing them."

He gestured to her midsection. "Your heartbeat is irregular because your sodium and potassium levels are low – you're not eating fast food, which you would hide from mommy, and you're not eating healthy food, which you would hide from your so-called friends. Your fingernails are also brittle, judging by how your hideous acrylic nails are struggling to hold onto you."

Now, he looked right into her stunned eyes to drive his point home. "You, Miss Trying-to-be-different, have anorexia nervosa, which means you are starving yourself to be as thin as the so-called sexy girls gracing the covers of Seventeen. I would prescribe you a big slice of chocolate cake – with frosting – and a visit to psychiatry upstairs. Talk to Doctor Wentworth, she's the specialist for adolescent mental disorders."

House scribbled this down on his pad, ripped the page off, and handed it to Ashleigh, picking up his cane to leave. He took her file from the counter on his way out, and before closing the door, added, "I don't care if you want to be like them. Just stop acting like you don't. No one likes a hypocrite."

And with this, he was gone. Ashleigh was left pretty much speechless.

--

**A/N**: Reviews make people happy. So go on, do your good deed of the day – tell me what you thought.


	5. Life Just Isn't Fair, Is It?

**A/N**: Writing House is ridiculously fun. I won't lie, this excites me. Hope you like the chapter, despite it being kind of short. Review at the end, as ever.

--

**V. Life Just Isn't Fair, Is It?**

--

Valentine's Day morning dawned, ironically, much darker than the past couple of days had. The clouds were heavy and gray and full, like they were going to explode and let it rain. Still, all the lingering moisture left the temperature warmer, which was one of few consolations the weather was giving.

House entered through the main entrance of Princeton-Plainsboro, as usual, and scrawled his name on the check-in sheet. However, as he placed the pen down and began to leave the desk, he heard a female voice behind him say, "Happy Valentine's Day, House."

He turned around to find Allison Cameron grinning at him and signing underneath his name, her much neater, more patient hand obvious against her ex-boss's careless chicken scratch. House smirked at the sight of her and looked her over.

"You're wearing pink," he stated.

"Yeah, I am," she said. "It's Valentine's Day after all."

"I shouldn't be so surprised that you celebrate this Satanic holiday," House remarked.

"I shouldn't be so surprised that you're wearing black," Cameron remarked in return.

"Well, one does hope that three years with me would give you some kind of insight into how this world works," House said. "You should have at least worn blue, if you weren't ready for full-out protest."

"You wanted to inspire me? Aww, House, that's nice of you." Her blue eyes twinkled with amusement. "Maybe three years with me ended up giving _you _insight into how the world works."

His smirk grew considerably. "Not a bad retort – I'd give it a four out of ten," he said.

"How is a four out of ten not bad?"

"When I hired you, I gave you negative points for your meager responses," House clarified. "To have gone up…fifty-seven points, that's not bad."

Cameron laughed freely, brushing a few stray locks of hair out of her face. "Thank you."

"So, are you going to go be the Pink Angel of the ER on Valentine's Day?" he asked.

"Yes, I am, but I do get the evening off," she said.

"Well, you're wearing a hideous pink flower only a clueless, blonde Australian with no taste in wildlife would pick," House noted, gesturing to the item in question pinned to her shirt. "The only logical conclusion would be that Chase is taking you out."

The corner of her mouth twitched with amusement. "Yes, he is," she confirmed. "And I thought it was cute. He gave it to me yesterday."

"You think everything is cute," House reminded her. "You probably think pug dogs and crack whores are cute. You probably even think this lobby looks cute."

"Actually, I do think the lobby is cute," she said. "I know it must burn your eyes, seeing so much pink in one place, but some of us do still think the idea of love is a good thing."

"Love is stupid," House muttered at once. "It's just that, an idea. It doesn't mean anything; because once the idea is gone, there's nothing left but two idiots bound together by a flawed system."

Cameron responding smile was a medley of amusement, affection, and a little annoyance. "I was wrong," she said. "You haven't changed a bit."

House was about to respond, but at this very moment, his pager went off. Cursing under his breath, he took a look and found it was from Thirteen – which surely meant the patient was getting worse. Oh dear.

"Sorry, patient dying," he told Cameron. "I've got to go."

"Well, it was nice to see you anyway," she responded. "Have a...bearable day, House."

He grunted in response and limped off to the elevator, somewhat relieved to avoid any more social interaction. He reached his office in a relatively decent amount of time and as usual, the team was waiting for him.

"All right, all right, I got the page, I'm here," he said. "What's going on?"

Thirteen stood up and opened her mouth to bring him up to speed, but before she could do so, Kutner jumped up and shoved a small, pastel pink box into House's hand with a rushed, "Happy Valentine's Day, House."

Taub snorted audibly from his seat, which the others did not do, but all four pairs of eyes were on House nonetheless as Kutner breathlessly awaited his boss's reaction.

House blinked a few times, somewhat perplexed, and then looked at the box Kutner had presented with him. It was a mini-sized cardboard package containing sugar candy-hearts.

"What is this?" he asked, wrinkling his nose ever so slightly.

"C-Candy," Kutner stammered, blushing now. "You know, because it's V-Valentine's Day and all…"

House glanced back down at the box and his team continued to glance at him – even Thirteen, who wasn't part of the bet, was looking on with amusement, curious as to the outcome of this peace offering.

House, needless to say, did not disappoint.

After digesting the reality of the situation for a few seconds, he looked Kutner in the eye and said, "Sorry, I don't swing that way. I'm not Thirteen. But hey, thanks for playing."

He opened the box and unloaded all the candy into his mouth, chomping loudly on it and tossing the box across the room into the garbage can. Kutner groaned and looked pathetically at Foreman and Taub who grinned with self-satisfaction and high-fived one another. Kutner rolled his eyes, deflated and very obviously sour, but House chose to ignore this in favor of asking Thirteen, "So, what's up with the patient? Why'd you page me?"

"Well, the stress test Taub and I ran yesterday didn't reveal anything new about her lungs, but there's uremia in the new urine sample and the electrolytes are out of balance – her kidneys are shutting down," Thirteen reported. "We've got her on dialysis, but the fiancé is out of his mind with worry and we need to figure out what's killing her."

"We already knew the fiancé was out of his mind for a variety of reasons I won't go into, so that's not _news_, per se, but thanks for letting me know." House gave an enormous gulp, swallowing the candy hearts and shuffling to the white-board. Popping the marker cap and standing poised by the list of Elizabeth's symptoms, he asked, "As of now, this girl has lost function in her kidneys and her lungs. Why do you think that is?"

"Some STD's are known to cause renal failure," Taub said at once.

"Why does it have to be an STD?" Thirteen demanded. "Just because she's young, doesn't mean she's been fooling around with every guy who'll take her."

"You never know," he argued steadily. "Besides, late onset from a teenage mistake isn't out of the question."

"Yeah – take _that_, Thirteen!" House stuck his tongue out at the young woman and pulled his Vicodin bottle out of his pocket, shaking a couple of pills into his hand and popping them in along with the candy hearts.

"The results for the STD panel came in this morning," Kutner announced, handing the sheet of paper to House. "She's clear for all of those."

"Oh." House frowned. "Sorry, Thirteen." He turned to Taub and stuck his tongue out a second time. "Ha – take _that_, Taub!"

Taub rolled his eyes and Thirteen smirked, triumphant.

"It could be viral hepatitis, or maybe typhoid," she volunteered.

"Hey, don't get complacent because you were right about the STD's," House warned. "Her urine cultures were clean."

"Maybe…maybe she really does have a cold," Taub mused.

"Yes, and her kidneys just magically decided to fail to make it interesting," House snapped.

"Or she's taking drugs," finished Taub. "Drugs can cause organ failure, particularly when she's taking cold medication and stressing over college tests."

House considered this thoughtfully. "Hmmm…first you thought it was sex, and now it's drugs. Clearly, you have very little faith in the American youth, but that works for me. Drugs it is, coupled with a cold in the middle of winter."

Thirteen shrugged. "Okay. I suppose we're going to have to search her dorm then?"

"Yeah – you and Foreman can check out the crib for anything that rattles or makes people high," ordered House. "Kutner, Taub, I need you to go to the lab to perform some kidney function tests on the various bodily fluids you've already got."

"What are you going to do?" Kutner wanted to know as the team stood up, Foreman fumbling for his car-keys.

"Me?" House grabbed his cane and started following them out of the office. "I'm going to go visit the patient. It would be awfully rude of me not to see her at least _once_, don't you think?"

With this, he opened the door and left, walking down the corridor towards the patient's room. He failed to leave it open for the rest of the team to exit out behind him.


	6. The Amazing Social Skills of Dr House

**A/N**: While this is incredibly and joyously fun to write, I must say, I have a new appreciation for the writers of _House_. It's not easy trying to get both the medicine and the soap opera to be just right, you know.

There are some House/patient and House/Cuddy interactions going on this chapter, so I hope you like it, and please remember to review!

--

**VI. The Amazing Social Skills of Dr. House**

--

"Hello, sick person of Room 114B, I'm Greg House. Nice to meet you."

It was with this greeting that House entered Elizabeth's hospital room, a smirk on his face as he settled down on the rolling stool by her bed.

Elizabeth looked up from the magazine she was reading and Luke, who had been napping in his chair with schoolbooks and papers all around him, awoke with a start. Both exchanged befuddled glances before Elizabeth coughed, "My name is Elizabeth. And who are you?"

"I, fair lady, am the doctor who's been forced to take your case." House's smirk was quite mischievous as he adjusted the fluid bags by Elizabeth's bed for the sole purpose of giving his impatient hands something to do. Luke's eyes immediately narrowed.

"Wait, how many doctors does Liz have?" he asked.

"Technically five," House responded. "Because your girl is so screwed-up, she has our whole department trying to figure her out."

"I'm not screwed-up," Elizabeth objected.

"Well, either my doctors are idiots or you're screwed up – and although the former is probably true, I think there's more truth to the latter explanation," answered House.

"Liz isn't screwed-up," Luke insisted. "Besides, aren't you supposed to be looking out for the health of the patient rather than insulting them?"

"My multi-tasking skills are so good that I can afford to do both, actually," House explained, bright blue eyes flashing.

Elizabeth coughed again and asked, "So is there anything particular you want, or are you just here for a social visit?"

House looked her straight in the eye and asked her, "Emily, have you taken drugs recently?"

"I've already told you, my name is Elizabeth," she said, reproachful. "And no, I haven't. I don't do drugs."

"How dare you ask her something like that?" the young, betrothed man wanted to know.

"Well, when you're taking cold medication along with some recreational drug because you're a moron, symptoms like the ones Emma has –"

"Elizabeth!" she corrected indignantly.

"—could pop up," House clarified as though he had not been interrupted. "Of course, you wouldn't know that because you didn't go to medical school; so I suggest you shut up and let me do my job. Have you taken any drugs, girl-whose-name-starts-with-an-E?"

"It's _Elizabeth, _like the queen; and no, I haven't taken anything, I swear," said Elizabeth.

"It's not in your best interest to lie to me," the diagnostician said rather conversationally, taking out his bottle of Vicodin and popping a couple of pills into his mouth. "I'm not a cop; you won't get busted for any dirty habits you might indulge in the privacy of your dorm room."

"If I had any dirty habits – which, by the way, I don't – you'd probably be the last person I'd tell," Elizabeth informed him irritably. "You're a rude, inconsiderate person who clearly has no interest in my well-being whatsoever."

House snorted. "Is this the part where you tell me something 'insightful' (he inserted some heavy finger-quotes around this abhorrent word) about myself and I suddenly feel bad and soften up to you? Here, wait; I had a list of my deepest fears and self-doubts, but I think I left it in my other pants."

"You're an asshole," Luke announced. "I don't want you getting anywhere near my fiancé. Get one of your other doctors to get what you need."

"If I sent Foreman, he would get back in touch with his black past and steal some valuable or another – therapy hasn't started kicking in yet with him," House mused. "If I sent Kutner, he would blow one or both of you up by accident and I'd have to do some very tedious paperwork. If I sent Taub or Thirteen, they'd make it too easy for you to lie and they'd come back with nothing. There are just some things you have to do yourself, it seems."

"Why are you assuming I'd lie to you?" Elizabeth seemed bothered by this principle, her green eyes murky and frustrated. "My life is on the line – there's no use lying to someone who's going to help me."

"Luckily, my reason is simple – you're human." House shrugged. "It's practically built into our systems to get out of trouble the only way we know how, which is bending the truth. _Everybody _lies. There aren't any exceptions to that rule – and if there were, they wouldn't be engaged college students."

"Is there something nasty you can say about me because I'm getting _married_?" Elizabeth could scarcely believe this.

"I think I could say something nasty about you no matter what you tell me," House corrected. "The odds are _always _on my side, you can ask anyone who knows me; but if you're still unsure, I could always check my crystal ball. Which I left in my other-other pants."

"So what's the prognosis on people who are engaged, _Doctor _House? Now I'm curious." Elizabeth's eyebrow arched in challenge.

House rubbed his chin mock-thoughtfully. "Um…my mental register turns up things like 'secretly pregnant slut,' 'insecure little girl needing some solid male support,' and 'idealistic dreamer who feels ready to rush into the excitement of true adulthood.' Any of those ring a bell?"

"Or – and I know this sounds strange – I could just be a girl who's found the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with," Elizabeth added, making Luke swell with pride in his corner.

"Every relationship has a foundation in insecurity," House insisted. "While it's just fine and dandy you think you want to spend the rest of your life with him, there's a basis upon which you've made this assumption."

"What, so now you're my psychiatrist and you're going to reveal something 'insightful' (more air quotes) about me, making _me _feel bad and soften up for you?" Elizabeth was quite incredulous at the prospect of this scenario.

"No – I'm just older and wiser and have seen plenty of idiots that prove my point," House responded, smirking all over again.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you're not married," Elizabeth said.

"Nope," House chirped, standing up so he could begin to pace. "Never wanted to be."

"Have you ever had someone you cared about? Are you even capable of caring about anyone?"

"Would it make your day sunnier and happier if I told you there was?" House's startlingly blue eyes widened with his would-be earnestness.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Wow. You really are an ass."

"Yes, and you've got fantastic breasts! We all win!" House threw his arms out in celebration and allowed his cane to fall to the floor with a clatter. As he bent down to pick it up, both Luke and Elizabeth had outrage plastered across both their faces.

"How dare you?" Luke roared. "She's going to be my wife in two months, damn it!"

"Sorry, I just thought we were having a state the obvious contest and I wanted to play along." House nodded in Luke's direction. "Now, before Mr. Nancy Boy has a cow and a half over there, we need to get back to the original question, Evelyn – _have you taken any drugs_?"

Elizabeth sighed, frustrated (and promptly had a violent coughing fit, causing Luke to gasp and House to roll his eyes), and said, "I still don't see how this is medically relevant."

"Just tell me." House was through humoring this girl with mindless conversation.

She inhaled deeply, trying her very best not to cough again, and determinedly avoided Luke's blue eyes as she mumbled almost inaudibly, "Okay…I took a bit of heroin about a month ago."

The corners of House's mouth twitched with self-happy accomplishment. "Wait, sorry, I couldn't hear that – can you repeat what you just said?" He leaned in a little, so as to hear her better. Luke's face was frozen, thunder-struck; Elizabeth blushed.

"I…took heroin a month ago," she said, just a hair louder.

"Wait, what?" House said this very loudly, so as to coerce the same volume out of her. Finally, Elizabeth lost her temper.

"Fine! Fine! I'll say it again!" she hollered. "I took heroin a month ago! At a party! I was drunk and stupid and a friend of mine gave it to me and I had it, all right? I passed out and didn't go to class the next morning and said I had stomach flu. Are you happy now?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, her pale face growing flushed with shame and embarrassment. Luke looked as though he had single-handedly swallowed the contents of a New York sewer.

"Lizzie, is that…for real?" he asked, hesitant and fearful, as though he really didn't want to know the confirmation he was sure to get.

"Yes," the girl inevitably had to say, still avoiding his gaze. "But it was just the once, I swear, and I won't do it again. It was terrifying."

"Why…why didn't you tell me?" Luke stroked Elizabeth's face, his expression troubled.

"It just didn't come up." Only now could Elizabeth hide no longer and let her eyes catch his. "I…didn't think you had to know."

House moistened his thin lips, his face somber but victorious nonetheless. "See, trusting is the best way to let the bad guys win," he said as he began making his way for the door. "If that had been medically relevant, and I trusted you, you would be dead by now."

"Wait – are you trying to say that asking about drugs _wasn't _medically relevant?" Anger flared in Luke once more as his head whipped back to face the departing doctor.

"Well…it kind of was," House amended. "But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious. I wanted to know if all the college-party rumors were true. I can't remember my own college days – my memories just go black when I try. Go figure."

His hand was on the handle of the door when Luke finally said, great bitterness coloring his tone, "You know, I did my research while Liz was here. I Googled your name and it took less than a second for millions of results to come up and most of the first page was a list of articles praising your skills in medicine. With that kind a reputation, why do you screw with people like you do?"

House took a few seconds to mull this over, hand still on the door, until he said as gruffly as ever, "It's all part of the process, sonny. Come and sit on grandpa's lap before bed-time tonight and he can tell you more about it. But I wouldn't recommend that."

With this, he left the room and began his way down the hall, thinking about perhaps lounging about his office for a few hours until his team had something interesting for him to see. With these noble intentions, he had barely made it to the end of the patient's hallway when Lisa Cuddy emerged from the other hallway, armed with her usual stack of important-looking hospital documents. The two almost collided into each other, but Cuddy managed to catch herself at the last second, keeping all her papers from falling to the ground.

"House," she said, registering his presence with a few extra blinks of her eyes.

"Woman with the hippopotamus ass," House retorted, blinking with hefty exaggeration back at her. Cuddy's expression cooled down at once.

"I think you already used that on me yesterday," she said.

"I know, but it's so true that I had to use it again," House clarified. "Besides it just rolls off the tongue, you know? Woman with the hippopotamus ass…woman with the hippopotamus ass…"

"Ah, well, that was my parents' second choice for me when I was born, but unfortunately, it was too long for the birth certificate." Cuddy rolled her eyes as the two of them embarked down the hallway together, their steps casually in-sync. "So how's the case doing? I assume you were down here to terrorize the patient."

House exhaled with strange heaviness. "The case is…going. The patient is an idiotic college student who thinks the world belongs to her – terrorizing her would be very easy, but more importantly very boring and a waste of my time."

"Because you know all about what's worth wasting time on," Cuddy inserted.

"Exactly," House said. He paused, and then looked the woman up and down, taking in her gray pencil-skirt and tight, low-cut red blouse.

"So…you're wearing red," he observed. "Yet another believer in Valentine's Day. Damn. They got you too. Was it a door-to-door thing, or did someone who really hates you drag you to one of their meetings?"

"I just like it," Cuddy remarked matter-of-factly. "I'm sorry if I'm not a miserable, self-loathing misanthrope bent on ruining the faith of all mankind."

"Well, better that than someone like _you_." He cocked his head to the side. "You're desperate. I mean, you clearly want a relationship since you're joining in the festivities associated with this so-called holiday; but, because you're not wearing pink, I figure that you don't actually want a one-night-stand, which is fun, which is frivolous, which is shown off with pink. You want the 'real thing,' which is passionate, which is shown off with red. And for you, the 'real thing' would be someone who would be willing to endure sex with you more than once."

"Yes, you've got me down perfectly, thanks," Cuddy sniped, sardonic. "But you, fortunately, are much simpler than that – your outfit is black, like your heart. You don't want anyone in your life."

"No, I don't," House admitted, "and I have the balls not to go around wearing tight clothes in the hope that someone will notice. Literally."

Cuddy grimaced. "Relationships are a good thing."

"They're overrated," House complained.

"It's human to want one."

"Humanity is overrated too."

At this, the two stopped walking, standing at the end of the hallway by the elevators, facing each other. They stared the other down for but a few seconds, Cuddy's gaze starkly annoyed and House's indecipherable as ever, until House doubled back the way they'd come.

"The elevators are over here," she called out to him.

"Yes, but since you'll be on one and I'm not in the mood to wait for the other, I'm going to the ones on the other side of the floor," he responded without looking back. "Besides, it looks much more dramatic this way – don't you think?"

And with this, he continued to hobble away, crashing through a pair of doctors looking over a file together. They dropped the folder, all the papers inside of it falling around them, and shouted resentfully after House, who simply sped up his pace.

Cuddy could not help but smirk to herself as she pressed the elevator call button.

--

**A/N**: Reviews are loved and eternally appreciated.


	7. Not What They Had in Mind

**A/N**: This is the second-to-last chapter already! Oh my gosh, yay!

This chapter is still on the same Valentine's Day morning – while House conversed with Elizabeth and Luke last chapter, Foreman and Thirteen went to the dorm and Kutner and Taub got stuck with testing. Just so you're clear as you embark on this next bit.

Reviews are the only payment a writer gets for his/her services, so please, do this writer a favor and leave a comment. Thanks.

--

**VII. Not What They Had in Mind**

--

The lab was generally a quiet place in the late hours of the gray morning – Kutner and Taub were the only ones in the place, attempting with little success to hide the general irritation that comes with testing urine on Valentine's Day, of all days. Both seemed to have an unspoken agreement to speak only when necessary, but after numerous silent minutes ticked by, Kutner decided that it was time to rethink the policy.

He casually asked, "So…are you going to be doing anything tonight for Valentine's Day?"

"Yeah, my wife made us dinner reservations," Taub responded just as casually, attention wholly on the carefully-measured palettes he had created for urine concentration tests. "She made them a couple of weeks ago. Are you going to be doing anything special?"

"Nah, I've never been big on Valentine's Day plans," said Kutner.

"Well, because of that whole stunt with House and the candy hearts, I figured…"

"I mean, yeah, I do like candy and being festive amongst my friends and workmates," Kutner hastily amended, "but I'm not into the whole Valentine's Day dating scene." He snorted and confessed, "To be quite honest, my girlfriends always dumped me before Valentine's Day, so the idea of going out to dinner, where I could see all the couples cuddling, was never very appealing."

Taub snickered, though not unkindly. "It's not really my thing either, making a big fuss over a single day halfway through February, but I don't have a choice in the matter," he said. "Some women just find it romantic, for whatever reason, and I'm married to such a woman. I figure if wearing a red tie and eating dinner at a fancy restaurant makes her happy, I can play along."

Kutner grinned a little foolishly. "Nice of you," he remarked. "The overall physical aspect of her pee is decent though – the color's off and it's thinner than it should be, but that's because her kidneys are failing, we already knew that. Otherwise, nothing abnormal that could explain her condition."

"Her sodium and phosphates are out-of-whack too." Taub sighed, irritated. "I don't know what the point of a kidney function test is at this point. We know her kidneys are screwed and there are a million reasons why."

Kutner shrugged. "It keeps House off our backs – that's a plus."

"I know." Taub shook his head, a grin playing on his lips. "Watching him react to Valentine's Day is like watching a constipated man endure the effect of laxatives."

The two shared chuckles at this unfortunate mental image, until Taub sighed again, restlessness obvious in his face and voice.

"I just…I wish we had another symptom," he said. "Something that would tie this up today and not hang over our heads for another couple of days. What we've got is so general and sporadic that it's hard to diagnose. We barely know what we're looking for."

"Leave it to House to pick the most impossible case he can get his hands on." Kutner stood up and surveyed the state of the lab, which was sufficiently messy considering only two people had been in it. "But hey, we'd better get this stuff cleaned up. House will already be pissed that we don't have anything new for him – we don't need Cuddy pissed at us over cleanliness."

"Amen to that."

With a heavy exhale each, Taub and Kutner began washing out the numerous used beakers and test-tubes, wiping clear the counters and setting objects back on their respective shelves. However, as they were about to finish up and leave the lab to announce to House their failure to find anything of medical relevancy, they heard feet dashing up the hallway.

A few seconds of curious waiting revealed the runner to be Luke, the soon-to-be-husband of Elizabeth Dyal. The look on his face was agonized, his breathing hard and irregular. But, the moment Kutner opened the door to inquire after the problem, Luke beat them both to it by blurting out breathlessly:

"It's Liz. You've got to help her, she can't see!"

--

"So, it seems that if Taub asks, God grants. Cool!"

This statement, while it made the team smirk to themselves, considerably amused House as he twirled his cane between his fingers a few minutes later in their office, sitting in one of the corner chairs away from the table. Out of the five, he was the only one who remained relaxed by the latest developments.

"Come on now, Taub wanted another symptom and a minute later, the patient conveniently gets iridocyclitis. Am I the _only _one big enough to admit that the timing is extremely fascinating?" he asked.

"No – you're the only one sadistic enough to deem this extremely fascinating," Foreman quipped, cutting. "Everyone else is extremely troubled – the human reaction to such a phenomenon."

"Yes, and apparently everyone is brain-dead too, because I'm not getting any remarkably good or bad theories on the subject," House retorted. He then looked back to Taub, his eyes sparkling with curiosity and substantial impishness. "Come hither, yonder idiots of medicine. I wanteth thy inventive ideas. Foreman, now's the time to suggest West Nile and have me cleverly dispute it – it gives the impression that something intelligent is going through your brain."

Foreman glowered, but Thirteen immediately protested, "This isn't time for jokes, House! This girl's body is well on its way to shutting down completely and we barely have anything to go on as a diagnosis. We didn't find anything the dorm room; Kutner and Taub didn't find anything in the kidney function tests. All we know is that it's an infection – and there are thousands of those!"

"_Nothing _in her dorm room?" House pretended to look extremely tragic. "Not even the tiniest whiff of crack? Smack? Mary-Jane? Crystal meth?"

"Nothing," she said.

"She's messy – she's got old clothes all over the floor – but otherwise, she's hygienic," Foreman added. "Surprisingly so, actually."

"I think it's hepatitis," Taub announced.

"Dengue fever," Thirteen volunteered.

"I'll take a long shot here and say malaria," said Kutner.

"If that's supposed to be an indication of what your long shots are like, never take up basketball," House said, wrinkling his nose. "All the mosquitoes are dead in winter. _Idiot_."

"It's the effort that counts!" Kutner insisted.

"Yeah…until the patient dies." House's glare was piercing, but brief, since he had the rest of the team to glance over. "Now let me be more specific in my requirements – I want a diagnosis from one of you that _doesn't _suck, and is in fact _plausible_. It's tough, I know, but Daddy can't take care of his ducklings forever – they have to learn to swim on their own eventually and leave the seaweed nest."

"I…don't know," Thirteen admitted.

House opened his mouth to say something else – perhaps something in the vein of his previous duckling metaphor and how this particular duckling was destined to be eaten by some pond predator – but he was interrupted by his pager going off. He took a look and groaned.

"Something's wrong with the patient again," he said. "Taub, go find out what it is."

"Fine." He got up, the chair making its usual creaky noise.

He then looked back to Taub. "And hey, while you're at it, do you think you could ask God to smite Cuddy for me, in honor of Valentine's Day?"

"I don't know, let me get back to you on that," Taub managed to respond with a roll of his eyes. Kutner chuckled, but Taub vanished out into the hallway almost at once, leaving House with the rest of his team steadfastly avoiding their boss's eyes.

"I don't suppose any of you were hit with any kind of enlightenment by his exit, were you?" House arched an eyebrow.

"It just…it doesn't make sense," Foreman griped. "How does an infection cause all of this so fast? How are we supposed to treat her? We knew early on that broad-spectrum antibiotics weren't working."

"Yes, Captain Obvious, we did indeed know that already," said House. "So tell me – _what don't we know yet_?"

This question was met only with silence. House's eyes narrowed.

"So tell me this – which one of you wants to tell our worried chef-in-training that his fiancé is going to be dead before tonight if we don't figure out what's killing her?" he asked.

This question was also met only with silence – this time a very uncomfortable one. The responsibility of informing a young college student that the woman he had chosen to marry was most likely going to lose her life – on Valentine's Day, too – was not one any of them were keen on taking, not even House himself. The prospect grimly hung over them, as gray as the gathering clouds outside their window, until they heard Taub running back down the hallway, alarm all over his face.

"House, her liver is failing," he called from just outside the glass doors, panting. "Her eyes are jaundiced and she's going into respiratory arrest again. The nurses are trying to bring her around and she's fast approaching coma stage."

"Her _liver _is failing now?" House was genuinely surprised by this proclamation. He took in the stunned looks on the faces of his other team members with a grim sort of glee.

"So you're basically telling me that under your care, her kidneys are failed, her eyes stopped working, her lungs went kaput, her liver is dying on us, _and _she's still got her initial cold." House snorted. "Wow. I think you four could bring health care costs down all by yourselves at this rate – because if you're four of the best doctors out there right now, no one's going to _want_ our health care!"

He took a breath. "Okay, I want Foreman doing blood cultures. He can pick a buddy for that. Then I want the other two to go to the lab and have some fun – pick your favorite test and go with it. Read the books, ask Jeeves for all I care. Just figure out what's wrong with her."

"What about you?" asked Kutner.

"It is at around this time in a case when I sit in my office with my ball and think – so I'm gonna do that." House heavily lifted himself up out of his chair, limping lazily to the door.

"Have fun," were his parting words as he slammed the door shut and left.

--

A few minutes later, Thirteen slipped into Elizabeth's room in order to get some fresh blood for Foreman's cultures. Elizabeth was asleep, knocked out by heavy sedatives for the agony she had previously been enduring and Luke was in the midst of very light, uneasy sleep, sitting on a chair beside her bed with his cheek resting on her limp hand. When the door opened, Luke immediately started and awoke, blinking a few times to focus in on the doctor.

"Wait, who…?" Luke squinted. "Who are you now? What do you want?"

"I'm Dr. Hadley," said Thirteen, "and I'm here for a little blood – we're running another test on Elizabeth."

"_Another _test? You mean, you still don't know what she's got?" Exhausted though he was, his resentment far outweighed his fatigue, his eyes glinting with blind anger and extreme worry. "How can that be?"

Thirteen bit down on her lower lip, checking Elizabeth's fluid bags and monitor to avoid his eyes. "I wish I could be more helpful, but we're…like I said, we're running another test," she said.

"I don't want another _test_," Luke all but growled. "I want answers. I want to know why Liz…what's wrong with my girl. She's dying. I don't need you to tell me that."

"I understand your concern," Thirteen began.

"Bullshit!" Luke exploded, blue eyes ablaze. "Bullshit! Like hell you understand my concern! You _don't _understand how horrible it is to see the love of my life, fragile and dying, in the middle of a busy hospital when there are supposed to be knowledgeable, trained people looking after her."

"We're doing our best –"

"Well, clearly, your best isn't fucking good enough!" he shouted, leaving Elizabeth's hand to pop up to his feet, fists clenched, ache emanating from every pore in his body. "Try _harder_! We have been here _three goddamn days_ and today is _Valentine's Day_. I was going to…going to take Liz out…that restaurant…it was going to be a s-surprise…"

Now Luke broke down completely, crumpling into his chair again, face in his hands, his body quivering. His breaths were hitched, violent, and desperate, terrified at the thought of losing his Liz on a day when couples celebrated their love.

And Thirteen could only stand there, holding her needle, watching him fall apart, knowing with a chill that reverberated through her body that she could neither do or say anything of consequence – because she knew about as little as he did on the outcome of his almost-wife.

Her lips pursed and her stomach sinking at the sight of his obvious pain, she attempted to hold herself together and take the blood as Foreman needed, but before she could drive the instrument into Elizabeth's forearm, Luke's shaking hand gripped with astonishing strength onto her wrist.

"Don't," Luke said, his voice strained and broken like a vase to the floor. "Don't take any more blood. She gave you enough."

"I-I need it for another test," Thirteen stammered.

Luke looked up to face the young woman, all the fight drained out of him, his hand still grasping Thirteen as if it was going to help, as if it was going to somehow bring Elizabeth back to him.

"Tell me she's not going to die," he whispered. "Tell me…tell me that you're going to figure this out. I…I need Liz. She's everything to me. If she goes, I swear it, I'm going with her."

"She's not going to die," Thirteen said almost automatically, her voice holding in it more determination than she would have thought she had. "We're going to get this right. Let me take the blood and she'll be out of here, alive, with you. I promise."

Luke held her gaze for a couple of seconds, his cerulean irises locked into her blue-green ones, until he finally released the pressure on her wrist. He reburied his face in his hands and refused to watch as Thirteen collected the blood as quickly as possible, gripping the needle tight as if that, too, would somehow bring Elizabeth back to the man who loved her.

She did not say a word on her way out – but she did hope, hope with all she could muster, that she had not been forced to tell a fraught man an excruciating lie.

--

**A/N**: Will I kill her, or will House pull through at the last second? I don't know…but the next chapter is the last, so you'll have to review to motivate me and wait to find out!


	8. The Little Idiocies That Could

**A/N**: The finale of my little episode is here at last! Yay! I hope it finishes up to your satisfaction and please do remember to review and let me know what you think when you're through. Thanks for reading, you guys!

**Additional side note**: Amber Volakis will be referenced at the end of this chapter and I just wanted to remind you that all this was supposed to take place in Season 4 when she's still alive. Don't nit-pick at me, please!

**Another Disclaimer**: The diagnosis I have, if you've got a good memory, has been used on a previous _House _episode. However, this episode was released after I finished writing this - which means I didn't borrow it from the show. This was written way back in February because I was particularly inspired and the episode was released at the end of March. Just so you know.

Enjoy!

--

**VIII. The Little Idiocies That Could**

--

By lunchtime, the weather had still not cleared up from the morning. The dreary clouds seen on the way in were very much present, constantly heading closer and closer towards rain – and a big one, judging by how cumbersome and miserable they appeared. The irony was a little bitter, considering how sunny the past couple of non-Valentine's Days had been.

On a normal Valentine's Day, this would certainly have put House into a good mood – irony was one of his favorite natural occurrences, after all – but it was not the case this year. His patient was as good as declared dead by now, having machines doing most of her functioning for her, and the case, the puzzle House usually thrived on, had not yet been pulled apart into something understandable.

He had his own storm cloud over his head this afternoon, and the rain had already begun.

House and Wilson sat together in the hospital cafeteria during their break at their usual table by the window, watching the gray weather consume their small slice of New Jersey, and House said little, preferring to eat and stare moodily outside. The pair were engulfed in silence for quite a while before Wilson finally tired of it and decided to speak.

"So, how's the case going?" he asked, his sweetly brown eyes tentative but innocently curious.

"Why does everyone ask me that?" snapped House, taking a sip from his glass of water. "It's going. It's just…"

"Difficult?"

"_No_," House snapped again. "It's just a particularly elusive infection that's progressing too fast to be what I would usually diagnose. And it doesn't help that my team is full of idiots that got absolutely _nothing _done over the past three days."

"You could have always gone ahead, tested, and proved them all wrong," Wilson suggested. "That's usually how this works, isn't it? You go behind their backs and pull out a miracle?"

House polished off the first half of his sandwich with a smack of his thin lips, chugging down a gulp of water. "Sorry, I'm a little short of miracles today – may I interest you in a sarcastic comment instead?"

"Because I'm _so _deprived of those in my life, right?" Wilson rolled his eyes.

"Hey, hey, sarcasm is something to be admired," House remarked. "It's quietly intelligent, enjoyable to everyone –"

"Except the victim, of course."

"Yeah, but where's the fun in it if they're enjoying the joke?" House rolled his eyes and continued, "The best part of the sarcasm is exactly that – it's _designed_ for the sole purpose of cutting an idiot's head in half. Or into a fourth, depending on the idiot in question."

"Well, when you put it that way, your fascination with it is almost justified. I could definitely see you as a sort of Jack the Ripper of Sarcasm," Wilson mused. "But without the not-letting-people-know-who-you-are part. You're much too arrogant not to bask in the limelight of your work."

House nodded with straight-faced solemnity. "_Some_one has to create a sensation here. Otherwise, what would we do, cure patients? Work the clinic? Let Cuddy rampage the building with her prosperous cleavage sending us love notes? Gah, I can't imagine the horror – hold me!"

His blue eyes bugging out with horror at such a prospect, House crammed the entire second half of his sandwich in his mouth and stared helplessly at Wilson, who could only roll his eyes.

"You are exactly the type of person the Democrats are working against in our health care system," he said.

The diagnostician took a few seconds to chew and swallow in record time, so that his mouth was clear enough to say, "And that's exactly why I'm not a Democrat – vote Nader!" House punched his fist in the air with victory. Then he went back to chewing his sandwich, taking special care to make as much noise as possible. Wilson wrinkled his nose in revulsion.

"Yes, by all means, continue making those attractive sounds – you know how they thrill me," he said.

"Don't mind if I do." House smirked and stole the rest of his friend's sandwich, much to Wilson's irritation. However, he was too accustomed to this to care; he sighed, clearly despairing over his current situation, and reached for his can of Coke, opening it and taking a hearty sip. It was House's turn to wrinkle his nose in revulsion.

"Wow, you're supposed to be a _doctor _– you should have _at least _gone for the Diet stuff. Or maybe the Zero. Something _healthy_," House chastised.

"Being your friend takes a big toll on my emotional well-being – caffeine helps keep me happy." Wilson arched an eyebrow in challenge as he took another sip. "But I'm sure you know all about drug-related happiness."

"Oh, it's drug-related happiness time! Why didn't you tell me, silly goose? Luckily, I came prepared." House pulled out his bottle of Vicodin, beaming as he showed it to his friend. "My handy-dandy happy pills…I never leave home without these babies. They complete me."

"I'm sure." Wilson took a final sip and set his can down.

"God, Wilson, don't you know anything about _hygiene_?" House swept up Wilson's can and cleaned it off with a napkin. "Drinking from the can makes you _sick_. Didn't Mommy Wilson ever teach you that?"

"Sorry, I guess I must've missed that lesson." Wilson snatched the can back and took a sip, just to spite House, who smirked.

"Wilson, as a registered doctor who actually _specializes _in infectious disease, I'm ordering you to stop drinking from that can! Do you know…?"

At this, those blue eyes – bright, sharp, and full of cutting humor – glazed over, his face vacant and faraway with thought, the look he always got when he got an epiphany he could not do without.

Wilson, being the ever-faithful Best Friend, could only smirk. "I'm guessing you've got one last miracle left in your back pocket after all, huh?" he asked.

House didn't respond. He barely registered that something had been said to him. He only abandoned the table, littered with the various wrappers both men had gone through, and began his mad limp to his office, abrupt and aloof as ever. Wilson was rather distressed.

"You're not going to make clean this up alone, are you?" he called.

But it didn't matter, because House was already gone and Wilson could only groan mutinously to himself in his wake.

--

Ignoring the considerable throbbing occurring in his bad leg, House went with startling speed on a cattle round-up through Princeton-Plainsboro to track down his team at their various locations. Of course, when he caught them and beckoned them to follow him, he did not explain the reason – but, as they had now become rather familiar with the quirks of their eccentric boss, they knew better than to ask too many questions.

However, that did not mean they did not ask any questions at all.

When House picked up Taub, one of the first things he had asked was, "If you already know what the solution is, what are you getting us for?"

"Well, mainly because I need an audience for the unveiling of the answer," House had responded. "When you're a genius, you don't hide in your dad's closet with your knowledge. And no, that was sadly not as dirty as it sounded."

Taub had not asked inquired after anything further in the subject.

The five doctors went on their march to Elizabeth Dyal's room, arriving eventually to where Elizabeth lay knocked out by her sedative and where Luke sat, agonized but reading a college textbook. At the door, Foreman made sure to open the door for House with, "After you, your majesty," to which House went in and airily responded, "Well-done, sergeant, I have taught you well."

The team trailed in after House, completely startling poor Luke, who jumped about a foot in the air at the sight of them all. He blinked a few times, blankly and bewilderedly, almost taking them in one at a time. House smirked.

"Good afternoon, sunshine!" he chirped sardonically, giving Luke a little bow. "Or, really, it would be 'good afternoon, rainshine,' considering the current weather, but technicalities aren't important right now."

Luke eyed the group suspiciously. "Hang on, wait…you're all in here, so there must be something important you want to tell me."

"Dr. House thinks he's solved your case," Kutner volunteered.

House shot him a filthy look. "_Thinks _he's solved the case? I _know _I've solved this case. Don't insult me like that or you're fired."

"Sorry, sorry…" Kutner blushed, but House ignored him, choosing instead to stride over to the table beside Elizabeth's bed where an empty soda can sat. He picked it up, shook it, and showed it around the room.

"This…" he began.

"…is a soda can," Foreman finished. "Congratulations, House, you know your beverage containers."

"Must you be so _snappy_, Foreman?" House wanted to know, impatient. "It's really bringing my vibe down. Not very nice."

Foreman rolled his eyes and Luke looked very confused.

"Is this how you guys solve every case? Argue about it?" he asked.

Foreman opened his mouth to respond, but House swiftly cut him off by saying, "Do you want me to save _her_ life or not?"

"Of course I want you to save Liz," said Luke at once.

"Then stop tempting a retort out of my team with your stupid questions," House responded. "Now answer me – do you drink directly out of soda cans?"

"Um…sometimes," Luke said, plainly in a state of perplexity. "Why?"

"Does Elise –"

"_Elizabeth_!"

"Elise, Elizabeth, same thing." House dismissed this with a wave of his hand. "Does she drink out of the can too?"

"Yeah, she does," Luke confirmed.

House grinned. "I knew it." Now he turned to his team, a mad-scientist gleam in his eyes. "This is a case of leptospirosis gone wild," he announced.

"Are you kidding?" Kutner exploded. "I passed that in the textbook yesterday _morning_!"

"Yes, children, this is indeed leptospirosis, manifested deeply into a college student who's already got hormones and body functions out of whack due to higher education," House said, looking with general satisfaction at Elizabeth's still body. "It explains everything – the cold, the multiple organ failure, why it didn't show up on any of the tests you all did."

"Wait, what's lepto-whatever?" Luke stared helplessly, blue eyes wide with incomprehension.

"Leptospirosis is an infection," Thirteen took over. "It's relatively rare in America, but not unheard of. It's difficult to diagnose because it affects a variety of body functions and needs very specific tests to prove its existence. It often starts off as a simple cold, as it did with Elizabeth."

"How did she get it then?" Luke asked.

"Most likely from a soda can," House stated. "If she drinks straight from the can, and that can was some place it shouldn't have been, it would have the bacteria in it."

"Does that mean I'm going to get it lepto-whatever too?" Luke's tone was laced with fear.

"Probably not, but I'd stop drinking from the can if I were you," suggested House. "Use a straw from now on – or a sippy cup, whichever you prefer." His gaze fell back to his team, specifically at Foreman.

"Do a PCR test to confirm the diagnosis," he said. "Later, make sure you test _him_, too, in case he got it from her while he was here. Then start her on some doxycycline, and glucose and salt infusions to get her electrolytes back in tune."

"On it," Kutner said brightly, exiting the room with Foreman to do the ordered tasks.

"It might take some time for her kidneys and liver to recover, but we can get rid of the infection within about two weeks," House finished, not as 'cheerful' as he had been a few minutes before. "She's going to be fine."

"She will be?" The look on Luke's face was unadulterated ecstasy, bliss in its purest form spreading across his face. "You're sure this is what she has and she's going to live?"

"Yup." House nodded. "She shouldn't be contagious by tonight. You could make her dinner – leave some in my mailbox if you do."

Luke snickered, but he was too overjoyed to care much about House's sarcasm; he got up from his chair, closing his books and notebooks, and said to Taub, Thirteen, and House, "Thank you. Thank you so much for helping her."

Thirteen smiled. "You're welcome," she said. "Happy Valentine's Day."

"You too," he said fervently, overwhelmingly. "You too…"

By now, there was nothing else left to say. The case was through, all the pieces of the puzzle collected together in their proper order. Elizabeth Dyal was going to live and marry Luke in a few short weeks. She was going to continue studying and getting ready for her career as a chef. Her real life was going to move on, almost like a fairytale; her brief meeting with the Diagnostics Department of Princeton-Plainsboro was over. They were all ready to move on.

But, for the moment, Luke was left to stare adoringly at sleeping Elizabeth as House and his remaining team members left the room, allowing them their peace on what was supposed to be the most romantic day of the year.

--

The end of the work day came relatively quickly after House's case was solved and Elizabeth was taken care of. Night emerged upon the outside scenery, rich and deeply blue, and the rain that seemed to be so definite that morning had seemed to hold off until the next morning. The sidewalks were devoid of falling rain that evening and people could be seen exiting the hospital in clumps, excited for their special evenings after a long day of work, excited to let loose and be free and love without question for at least a few hours of simple pleasure.

Cameron and Chase left the building together, cuddled up against the February chill and chatting lightly, Cameron still wearing the enormous pink flower from Chase as they got into his car to go for dinner. Elation was obvious on her face as well as his, everything about them pure and youthful and fully invested in the other.

Taub, walking out of the main entrance, was pleasantly surprised to see his wife waiting for him in the parking lot, off of work early and smiling. He joined her at once, settling into the passenger seat for once instead of the driver's seat, and the two of them departed, listening to the radio and smiling at a joke she had heard on the radio.

Wilson, wearing his brown coat and his usual goofy grin, was holding the hand of Amber Volakis and kissing her cheek, telling her she looked beautiful and watching her glow at the compliment, the warmth emanating from her into him. Together they walked, her heels clacking against the gravel and his sneakers squeaking along, the two thrilled to be together again after a day of being apart.

Foreman, Thirteen, and Kutner similarly walked out in their own little clan, their conversation cheerful and congenial as they made plans to meet up in an hour at the bar nearby. Valentine's Day was not a priority for any of them so they treated it as a drink among friends, fueled by their familiarity at work but not made entirely because of it; just a night for three doctors to kick back and get a little drunk on a Friday night.

House was one of few remaining alone as he limped out of the building without bothering to sign out, his coat and scarf sparing him from the cold, his blue eyes the only source of vivid color on his gray-and-black-clad person. He left later than his colleagues, solely to avoid seeing them leave to live their real lives, and he looked forward to a night with his scotch and piano in the comfortable loneliness of his home.

To him, Valentine's Day was no different from any other night, and this was exactly what he did every other night. It made no difference what the rest of humanity did. He stayed by himself, a quarantine sign plastered to his forehead warding off people who might care, and he approached his car without many plans to have anyone in it.

On his way, he happened to pass by Cuddy, also walking similarly on her own, hiding in her coat against the breeze, a hint of her red shirt visible from the angle at which he stood. He couldn't help but smirk just the tiniest bit, seeing her there just like him when she so often claimed that they were miles different. At this moment particularly, precious little distinguished her from him.

A glint of humor, humanity, appearing feebly in his hard face, House slightly sped up his walk, ending up only a few steps behind Cuddy as she stopped, searching for her car.

"Cuddy," he called, aimlessly, purposelessly, a schoolboy jeer audible in the single word. The woman in question turned to glance at him, something indecipherable about her expression, screwed up against the cold.

"House," she called back.

"What are you doing tonight?"

She bit her lip, her features seemingly shrinking into her face at these five easy words. She didn't say anything. She stared a second, maybe more, the two of them caught in the surreal glow of the night, before she turned back to where she had been looking and absconded, striding along even if she had no idea where she was going.

And he watched her go, watched longer than he should have, flickers dancing in his irises like moths in the outer fringes of a healthy flame.

"Happy Valentine's Day, Cuddy," were his final murmured words, fragile and left to the carrying winds, before he got into his car and let the whole incident pass him by.

--

**A/N**: And that's it! Oh my gosh!!

All right, now, I'm well aware that some thank you's are in order. Here are a few of them.

First of all to **Roohina**, a good friend of mine in real life, who looked over these chapters so diligently for me while I was writing them. Thanks, darling, for telling it like it was.

Second of all to the **Google search engine**, which led me to all the sources where I got my sketchy medical knowledge for this story.

Third of all to another friend of mine, **Emily**, for sending me the e-mail forward that gave me the idea for the disease. Yeah, I got it from a forward – weird, I know, but very true.

Fourth of all, I would like to thank my lovely **Liz**, for whom this story was written. Darling, you mean the world and more to me, and all I can say is that I hope you enjoyed this. I did my best and I never would have dreamed I'd be brave enough to try it if I didn't have you lying to me and saying I could do it well. Hope your fifteenth birthday was a good one.

And, last of all, I would like to thank **all you readers**, for sticking this out with me! It was my first ambitious House project, since I've only posted about three other one-shots before this, and I appreciate your reading/reviewing. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Hopefully, this was an enjoyable use of your idle time and please remember to leave a final review with your last thoughts! I would love to hear from you.

Cheers!  
X

Love,  
Zay


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